(first posted 1/14/2016) Toyota’s batting average has generally been high over the decades, but not everything carrying the big “T” has been a long-term winner. One of Toyota’s biggest challenges was in what is commonly called the “pony car” market. Created and often led by Ford’s Mustang, this class of sporty cars was once huge, and it obviously seemed like ripe fruit for the picking. And for a while, the fruit hung low and the picking was pretty good.
Toyota’s first Celica, which arrived in 1971, looked more Camaro than Mustang, but with a decided Japanese edge to it too. And it got off to a good start in the US. Of course it was smaller and lower-powered, but it was the analogue of the Corona to the Impala, and plenty of folks were quite happy to ride in a 7/8 scale Japanese-built Camaro or Mustang, especially since interior space wasn’t really all that much smaller, except in width. Its 90 hp 2.0 L 18R SOHC four was rugged and economical, but it wasn’t about to worry anything other than a six cylinder Camaro or Mustang.
When the Celica sported a very Mustang-esque fastback a few years later, its intentions were clearer than ever. But it was also obvious that whatever the Celica (and its other Japanese competitors) was, it was not a true pony car competitor. The four-cylinder compact sporty coupe became a market of its own, and the Celica went on to have a long and fairly successful life playing a dominant role in it.
With the appearance of the second generation Celica (top), styled in the US at Toyota’s new Calty design studios, Toyota became more ambitious. It extended the regular Celica’s nose to make room for its M-Series inline six, the same engine that also powered the Crown and would soon be familiar in the Cressida. And it named the augmented coupe the Celica Supra. The name “Long Nose” was apparently already taken.
The Supra, with its very mildly-tuned 110 hp 2.6 liter six and velour interior, was clearly no Trans Am chaser either. “Plush, Lush” were the key words here; in other words, the Celica Brougham. Well, it was in the heart of the Brougham Epoch.
The Supra found some takers, as in Toyota’s key market in California by this time there were plenty of affluent dyed-in-the-kimono Toyota fans ready for some “powerful pleasure”. This really was the first Lexus coupe. And in Japan, that’s certainly the role the Celica XX (as it was called there) played.
The second generation (A60) Celica Supra still shared the back two-thirds of the Celica’s body, but it was decidedly more ambitious and sporty in its intent and capabilities. The M-Series six now sported a DOHC head, which made between 145 and 161 hp during the course of its run in the US (1982 – 1986). And there was a new independent rear suspension. The Supra was a bit pricey compared to a Camaro or Firebird of the times, but build quality and reliability were in totally different…planets. The eighties were a low point for GM’s F-Body cars, and although the Mustang was improving, the Supra was in a league of its own in that regard.
This generation of Supra came the closest to being a genuine pony car competitor. But the horses were getting more powerful by the day, and actually catching them was another story.
For the third generation (A70), the Supra parted company with the Celica, both in name and in its platform as the Celica now went to a new FWD platform. There’s little doubt that sleek new GM’s F-Bodies of 1982 had an influence on its styling. It arrived in the spring of 1986, with a 200 hp version of the DOHC six. Unfortunately, a change in head gasket material led to them blowing, almost inevitably. It was the one blemish in an otherwise highly-regarded engine in terms of longevity.
No, this is not a stock Supra Turbo engine; good luck finding one, as they’ve all been blown to kingdom come. I mean, boosted to the kingdom of the Fast and Furious. When it came to developing a cult following, the Supra was every bit the equal or more than that of the pony cars.
The Supra and the JDM Toyota Soarer shared the same platform, except that the Soarer had a three inch longer wheelbase. The next generation Soarer came to the US as the Lexus SC 300/400.
Unfortunately, I don’t have ready access to the price of the when they were new, but I believe they were $20k plus, for the naturally aspirated version and at least $25k for the Turbo. A Camaro Z28 stickered at about $15k in 1991. That put the Turbo right in Corvette territory, price-wise.
The 1990s coincided with a period when the Japanese yen was strong, and Toyota could no longer compete on price, for the most part. So the strategy was to accentuate the quality and content, during what became known as the “fat content” era of Toyotas. That worked almost surprisingly well for many of their cars, during a time when a Camry XLE went for the equivalent of $40k in today’s dollars.
The other problem was that the whole sporty coupe market was falling apart in the latter 1990s. F-Body sales swooned steadily, and in 2002, the plug was pulled. The Mustang got a reprieve, but only through sever penny-pinching in the S-95 generation, updating the old Fox body platform rather than a new one.
Supra sales in the US fell steadily during this generation. The first model year, 1986, a pretty healthy 33,283 units were still sold. That number fell steadily throughout its run, and in its last year, 1992, all of 1,193 found buyers.
The next generation (A80) took the Supra into very serious performance realms. Damn the price tag; full boost ahead. The twin-turbocharged version now had 320 hp, but is there still one left in the wold that hasn’t had its boost increased? The new 2JZ inline six could take seemingly infinite amounts of it, and still survive. I don’t have sales numbers, but by now, the Supra was largely in a category of its own, and something more along the lines of a Corvette chaser than a pony car wanna-be. This generation Supra was withdrawn form the US market in 1998 due to low sales, although it continued in Japan until 2002.
Meanwhile, just a few years later the American pony car began its revival with the new 2005 Mustang, followed by the Camaro and Challenger. The American neo-pony cars’s success is in no small part due to their heritage, and one the the imports have been effectively shut out from.
That’s not to say that the Supra is dead by any means. The Lexus RC is very much in the same vein, and with a starting price of $40k, it’s effectively cheaper too. Why do folks keep saying Toyota only builds dishwasher-dull cars? And who care which logo is on the hood?
Related:
CC 1974 Celica Coupe – Betting On The Wrong Pony
CC 1979 Celica Supra: The Lexus Of Celicas
CC 1985 Celica Supra: The Best Built Camaro
Did they detune the 4M for the early Supra my Corona MK2 owners hand book rates the 2.6 4M at 150hp and the 2.2 2M at 135hp, great cars and done in true Toyota style they had an engine and a platform to suit any purpose and did a good job mixing and matching components.
US smog controls.
Nope, JIS gross vs. SAE net ratings, plus metric vs. mechanical. For some obscure reason, the Japanese industry didn’t adopt net ratings until the mid-80s, although their gross ratings were not as optimistic as ours often became. The 4M-EU in the initial Celica XX claimed 140 PS JIS, which was with 8.6:1 compression and catalytic converter. However, that was metric (so 138 hp) and if you deduct the roughly 15% difference between JIS gross and net ratings, it comes out at something like 115–117 hp. So, the JDM engine might have been a little more powerful, but we’re talking 5 to 10 hp, not 30 or 40.
I don’t have 1986 prices but here are some 1989 prices:
Supra $22,360
Supra Turbo $24,700
Mustang LX 5.0L Sport notchback $11,410
Mustang LX 5.0L Sport hatchback $12,265
Mustang GT $13,272
Camaro IROC-Z $14,145
Corvette $31,545
300ZX $22,299
300ZX Turbo $24,699
RX-7 SE $16,150
RX-7 Turbo $22,750
Conquest $18,974
The Supra split the difference in price between the regular pony cars and the Corvette, while being priced fairly lineball with the 300ZX.
The Mustang is the real bargain here. Best bang for the buck, especially the LX notchback.
I didn’t realize the RX7 turbo was cheaper than the 300ZX/Supra. That’s the one I’d choose.
I never realized how cheap the Mustang was!
Given the $10k price disadvantage to the Mustang Im surprised so many were sold. A kid around the block has a Supra with 500+ hp. Says you can squeeze 1000hp out of them!.
With a copper head gasket and o-rings around the bores, you might get 1000hp out of them for a couple of minuets…
Not copper, but multi-layer steel MLS gaskets. The 7M in the 86-92 models benefits greatly from replacing its weak composite HG with an MLS type. The 2JZ-GTE ins the 93-98 mk4 supras had MLS from the factory and can hold 600-800 hp with stock internal parts, and 4 figures with aftermarket pistons and rods.
Count me as a fan though many in the UK were “tuned” to the same level as a hand grenade with no pin, horribly butchered with scoops and body kits or wrapped round lamp posts. It’s a long time since I saw one
I not sure how much these were pony car competitors. Seemed more like two door Cresidas. Remember it had also gained the twin cam head and irs. Probably inevitable without a V8, but with the lux interior.
The performance rep comes almost exclusively from aftermarket tuners. In stock form, the softness, high weight and small engine were limiting factors. An Espirit rather than a Trans Am. The Ricers then noticed an Espirit is what Jim Rockford had his fun in. His was really a Formula underneath, and soon so were the Ricers Supras.
Another nicely unbiased bit of wisdom here…lol
They were not pony cars, they were grand touring cars–comfortable good power very good handling, but not nimble. That is until the last generation turbo–that one was a lower-echelon super car right from the factory. Your comparison to firebird esprit applies somewhat to the first gen supra, but the second and third gen were much better handling than a standard firebird or camaro.
The mark 2 Supra was decidedly upmarket from the US pony cars. As this Car and Driver review points out, Porsche, BMW and Nissan were real targets, but the pony cars certainly had to up their game to look competitive against it.
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a32387545/tested-1982-toyota-celica-supra/
We have a 1992 Toyota Supra Turbo with all the whistles except leather seats and seat warmers. This stock beauty won in quite a few car shows.
I have the exact same model . I loved my car when I bought it thirty years ago, and I still love it today. I love my beautiful Supra!
We are both lucky ducks to have one
Buddy of mine in college had a new ’86 Supra. (His family was quite wealthy.) He was paranoid about driving if he’d even smelled alcohol, and would always pass me the keys. It was my first experience driving anything even remotely resembling a sports car. It was fun. I remember the cowl being a little high, but not so much it was troublesome to see over.
I love the looks of the Supra that followed this one. There’s a used-car lot next to the Mejier where I shop that has two rustbucket beater examples in their back lot. I keep meaning to photograph them, but never quite manage it.
Definitely not a ’91; the 90-92’s have SRS for the driver, while from ’91 on these came standard with the tasteful 5-spoke rims.
Nitpicking aside, this editorial was a great read. Among enthusiasts, Toyota is often criticized for not making ‘fun’ cars. Of course they did in the past, it’s just that they didn’t sell very well after the collapse of the sports car market in the late 1980’s. Recent efforts, such as the last Celica, the MRS, and the Scion coupe whose an acronym escapes me, have met with tepid response from the market.
These Supras have their following, but as the cars escalated in price, they became unobtainable by their core audience, who were forced to buy them used. Which explains why it’s so hard to find a third gen Supra that’s not knackered, boosted to an inch of its life by the Too Fast, Too Furious, Too Stupid brigade. High-testosterone males of limited means and questionable taste usually make poor choices. It’s a pity the cars had to suffer.
I just took a stab at the year. I’ll change it to the whole range of years.
The little nose section and taillights mark it as a late car, so maybe a 1990. Or the wheels were dealer-installed to match the paint.
Its an 89. The white package was 89 only and as noted it has the 89+ nose and no airbag, which narrows it down to 1989
A good friend has an ’86 Supra he’s owned since new, had kept it in well-preserved condition, now restored. It was the first sporting Toyota I ever drove and was quite impressed with its muscular performance.
In May of 1983, taking a break from studying for semester final exams, I test drove a black Supra 5 speed. I was bit, Big Time, by this car. I wanted it BAD.
The local dealer was, unfortunately, the typical greedy pimp that all-too-many foreign car dealers were at that time. They wouldn’t sell me the demo I drove, as they wanted it around to entice other buyers.
Fine, I said, order me one, I’m a patient man, I’ll wait.
Because of wanting a “Special Order” car the dealer wanted FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS above the sticker price. And wanted to add on a bunch of unwanted, high profit dealer add on options.
A half mile down the same street, the Ford dealer was more than happy to “dicker on the sticker” of a midnight blue, V8 powered, brand new, aero ’83 Thunderbird, with the optional suspension package.
I was so insulted by the unbridled greed of the Tie-odd-ah dealer that I settled for the lesser of the two cars.
I loved these too! I was in high school, and my buddies and I went to check one out, and the dealer had a black 5-speed Supra demo car, just like the one you describe. I wonder if the dealers chose black because it hid the rather awkward looks of the cars with the black tailgate married to other body colors…
Anyway, we were also seriously in lust with that car. The dealer wouldn’t let us drive it, and treated us poorly. Granted, we were high school boys, but common courtesy would have been nice. Based on your experience (also my brother’s in ’84 when he bought a Honda), I’m not sure we would have been treated much better even if we’d had money in hand ready to buy…
I’m also a fan the ’83 T-Bird by the way, and I can see why you took your hard earned dollars down the street!
In this time period, Honda dealers was just as avaricious as many Toyota dealers were.
In late 1986, while test driving a new Prelude, the young, clean cut, polite Republican poster board appearing salesman offered, mano-a-mano, to move me to the top of the long Prelude waiting list for a cash remuneration of two hundred American dollars.
I moved on to an ’87 CRX SI already in stock, discounted by the clueless dealer “because we don’t sell many ‘stick shift’ cars”.
#RollEyes
I’ve stashed away a small fortune since starting my work as a nurse and it’s burning a hole in my pocket. I find most cars appealing on some level. This generation of overweight Supra with its Japanese Hi-Fi interior, “road hugging weight” and optional turbo torque holds some definite appeal to me.
Now, if you could find this car’s successor in the flesh, it’s make for an excellent, overdue CC… maybe that’s in store for later this week and I just don’t know it.
They’re rather rare. I’ve seen one or two, but never standing still.
The first and second generation Supras were wonderful cars. I tested each one for a week back in th day and remember the second generation car as being very upscale with interior design, bold styling and more than enough power under the hood.
By 1990 my vote goes to the 300ZX which was an engineering marvel. It was not in the same league as a Mustang of the same era. And a slightly better car than the Supra in execution.
Besides the change in head gasket material, the other issue was that the head bolts were not torqued down correctly from the factory. It seems the specs were 20 ft lbs less then they should be.
After you replace the HG with a revised gasket and use new head bolts torqued down to the revised torque value then the engine was good to go.
I wouldn’t call these ponycar-chasers either. They cost about twice as much. The whole idea of a ponycar was cheap fun. And as a previous owner of two Mustangs I can tell you that’s exactly what they were…rough, unrefined, a bit of a handful, but affordable and fun as heck.
Toyota hasn’t ever really made a serious effort at that market.
As a minor note, the independent rear suspension was actually introduced on the final year of the original Celica XX, although we didn’t get it. It wasn’t offered on all models even in Japan, so I assume Toyota made a priority of developing semi-trailing arms that would interchange (in a production sense) with the live axle. The third-generation Celica did that too. I don’t know if it was great for geometry, though.
Also, as regards the original Celica, it was a pony car in the sense the original Capri was. It wasn’t ever going to match a big block Camaro, of course (although other markets got some hotter engines we did not), but it was a similar marketing concept, particularly in the blizzard of options. Toyota USA simplified that in favor of one or two trim levels heaped with equipment, but the JDM cars had a Mustang-rivaling option list with a choice of five or more engines at some points.
Why do folks keep saying Toyota only builds dishwasher-dull cars? And who care which logo is on the hood?
Because ‘Toyota Supra’ is a cool name and ‘Lexus RC’ sounds like a vending machine drink. Plus I’d say it’s more of a SC successor… Hmm wait a minute, Royal Crown cola… Toyota Crown… Lexus Royal Crown… Did I just figure out the Lexus’ Alphanumeric naming strategy? 😀
And yes Toyota does indeed build dishwasher-dull cars, and they’re proud of it. Any product attracting and semblance of an enthusiast following is unfit for that image.
Hmmm . . . you’ve given me an idea. I’m going to get a Toyota Echo, no wait, Yaris, and badge it as an XRS GT. That’ll be the ticket!
Lexus SC successor? Nope. They just introduced the true SC-successor this last week. It’s called the LC and reportedly in the $100K range.
From the first time I saw the RC, I thought “Supra” in my mind, so proper respect to the blog author. It’s a great comparison and a good market where nobody is stopwatching Mustangs.
Everyone says the Toyota brand is “boring” but most don’t realize that it is “boring by design”. Toyota wants to be the Wonder Bread of automobiles, so they put the fruity wheat and pumpernickel cars in Scion and Lexus.
Their new design language is certainly not boring. It’s not at all good either, and the driving dynamics are boring as ever, but the design is not boring.
Your last sentence is exactly what I constantly point out, but I don’t see it as a positive. Toyota managed to grow and prosper with a full lineup of dreary boring sedans along side a few niche cars wearing the same badge in the past, they could do it today. I’ll never understand the hypocrytical stance some have on the consolidation of multiple US brands while continuously praising Toyota, whose shit has apparently never stank, for doing the same damn thing as of the last decade (shared registration or not – different badge = different brand.)
Also I really don’t see how a 100k 2+2 sports car is an SC successor, unless you’re looking at the original through rose tinted glasses. A 92 SC400 listed at $37,500, Inflation Adjusted that’s a bit less than about $63k today, pretty much the same as an RC F. And having driven a few they’re pretty much like any big coupe of the era, useable back seats, big trunk, GT style performance but hardly supercar fast, ect. From the impression I get from the LC it’s a 2+2, which always means 2 people = 2 small pets.
And agreed Phil L.
I’ll never understand the hypocrytical stance some have on the consolidation of multiple US brands while continuously praising Toyota, whose shit has apparently never stank, for doing the same damn thing as of the last decade (shared registration or not – different badge = different brand.)
You’ve pretty much completely missed the critical big picture and the point of his comment. True separate brands, like GM’s, required two things that were unsustainable: a complete separate dealer network, and all of the huge costs that go with that. And a comprehensive line of products for each brand to sell. As it became painfully obvious at GM, the divisions pretty much all had the same basic line of cars, and as such were all competing against each other. When the Sloan ladder collapsed in the post war era, the whole point of having so many separate became irrelevant, although it sort of worked for a while. Until the Japanese/European invasion, that is. Which made the whole Saturn thing such a colossal blunder – the last thing GM needed was another division, which was screaming for the same product as all the other ones.
Toyota does not have any internal competition. Their brands and sub-brands are quite clearly delineated and do not have overlapping products. This is the key point. It is not comparable to GM in any way, which sold some of the the same basic cars in 5-6 divisions, with madly overlapping prices.
You (and you’re not alone) may disagree about the creation of the Scion sub-brand. It probably wasn’t the most brilliant move. But the key point is that it hasn’t hurt Toyota in the least, and possibly helped them.
And everyone knows that a Scion is really just a Toyota with a bit of a badge/marketing spin. Big deal. Who really cares? Why do a few folks endlessly care if Toyota’s sporty/edgy cars have a Scion badge or Toyota badge?
I’m guessing it’s folks like you who tend to dislike Toyota generally, and use Scion to try to prove that Toyota made a mistake with it. But looking at Toyota’s overall sales number and their profitability, it’s a complet non-issue.
If Toyota decided to kill Scion, they would incur almost no expense. When GM killed Oldsmobile, it cost them over a billion. Never mind the billions wiped out in bankruptcy.
The two issues are not comparable.
Scion is a young and innocent division, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury and Plymouth were old and fat, that’s one distinction I see, otherwise many were part of shared dealers, like Toyota/Scion (especially towards their demise), and all of them started with distinct niches in the marketplace as well.
The whole market overlap issue came with time, and Scion benefits by the fact that there weren’t too many categories of car in the prewar years the US divisions were created, and just having a model equipped or built a certain way (for a premium or bargain) was all it took to justify their existence and make them successful. They just remained complacent and/or dropped their selling points to bank on the established brand name to the point that the rest of the mainstream market caught up to them. Scion offers the same distinction that any other brand started with, the only difference between it and pontiac in the final few years(sharing dealers, having a lineup of many niche cars) is Toyota had their shit together elsewhere, GM obviously didn’t.
Which brings me back to what I said, Toyota as a brand has had every last category of car Scion now carries, and a few which Lexus now carries in the Supra/RC vein. Toyota was an automaker that was as unsloan as it got in it’s growth, yet here come these companion makes …err, sub brands, in the last decade or so??? I grew up with the Supra, Celica and MR2 gracing my bedroom wall at one time or another, they were great Toyotas fitting of that badge, shifting their “successors” if you will into a luxury brand or a pseudo odd duck brand just makes it seem as though if the company is embarrassed by them.
To retort to your other couple statements – I care because I dislike the beige Camry image Toyota wholeheartedly embraces today, and miss when I would see sporty Toyota badged cars with long running names like Supra or Celica on the street not that long ago. Shifting their “successors” to different brands I could probably cope with, with Scion or Lexus taking up those models, but giving them meaningless alphabet soup monikers is as much of a sin as the US automakers commit with their name shuffles. The Camry and Corolla get a lot of praise around here for sticking to those names but for Toyota’s sports cars that’s simply not the case.
-My own observation? It seems like Folks like you tend to defend and rationalize Toyota this much were scorn by GM in particular. GM tends to catch the most flack for their big missteps compared to Ford or Chrysler’s, and Toyota tends to be defended the most vehemently of the Japanese makes when it comes to their minor missteps(Scion being one). I’m not saying I don’t have my own biases as well, but this is clearly a bias.
You can count me in as a fan of this generation Supra. A combination of good performance, luxury, build quality, and style! I’ve always loved the all-burgundy leather interior offered.
I’ll be honest, I’m not a Japanese car kind of guy. My tastes are strictly limited to the Americans and some parts of the Germans and British, so I just never give to much attention to the Toyota/Honda/Nissan etc. deal. A Japanese car must be pretty special to get me to like it. Thankfully this does that, I’ve always liked the styling of this car, my favorite of the Supras, and much better than the fourth gen one.
The problem I see with this car trying to compete with the pony cars is not just the price discrepancy, it’s a sense of image and arguably function. The American pony cars were not just successful because of price, they also offered cheap V8 grunt (which the Supra never offered) and simplicity. Whatever faults the Fox Body Mustang and the F-Bodies had, they were easy to work on and customize to suit the needs of the crowd that bought them, and for very cheap as well. The Supra never seemed to offer that, it was too heavy, too expensive, and too mechanically complex to really make it viable (From what I’ve heard from other owners and experts on forums, these things are very expensive and hard to repair if something goes wrong). In a lot of ways, the third gen Supra seemed something more along the lines of the Japanese interpretation of the Grand Tourer than a true competitor to the likes of the Trans Am and the IROC-Z.
Still, I always remain a fan of these. It is a truly special Japanese car that makes me take notice, and that’s very hard to do for a Japanese car.
I think you may like that last generation Supra because it didnt “feel” Japanese. The driving experience seemed more Jaguar-like to me. Actually best of both worlds, Japanese reliability with a little British driving excitement.
“Why do folks keep saying Toyota only builds dishwasher-dull cars?”
I know I’m a dying breed, but the RC holds zero interest for me because it doesn’t offer a manual transmission.
I remember the first time I saw this generation Toyota Supra. I thought it was Toyota’s best looking Supra since the first generation Celica Supra back in 1978-79.
My dad’s lifetime trust in Toyota started with a 1980 Supra, champagne color, exactly like the one pictured above. It replaced an Olds Cutlass Supreme and he never went back to GM.
2nd Generation Supra in red was probably the only Japanese car I lusted for as a 20 year old, I still think they look good, you never see them around here anymore.
CC effect. Saw my first A40 at a recent car show, and a nice A80 just a few minutes ago.
Paul, you’re right. The Lexus RC is the modern day third generation Supra. And some things never change: today’s Mustang V6 at $24K matches or outperforms the RC at $42K. Interestingly, the main criticism of the RC is the same as it was for the Supra: porkiness. This time, though, there’s a lot less daylight in the quality, comfort, and feature content between the Mustang and the Supra, er RC, despite the same differences in image and target market.
I’ve always admired these Supras, especially these later models with the revised nose/tail treatments. I always wondered where they all went; though I see one parked at a house on my way to work most mornings, that’s pretty much the only one I ever see around these parts. I never realized how poorly they sold by the end; that explains a lot.
Was the head gasket issue only on the turbo cars, or was that all of them? And one would think they eventually fixed it at some point, unless the fix had to wait for the last generation.
I happen to own a 1992 Supra Turbo. The one I have is the automatic not the five speed. While looking at garage sales I happen to find the original article from Car and Driver stating the car, with turbo, automatic and 7M/GTE designation, sold for 39,995. Mine still has the original paint and factory stickers on the inside. By regular calculations (I.E. most of the production for 1992 were sold with the five speed) there should have been approximately 500 or less on the street in 1992 with the automatic. I would love to find out how many stock originals are left from 1992.
If you went into a Toyota dealership in 1987, you had the choice of FOUR sports cars – a FWD Celica, favored by the ladies, a RWD Supra, favored by the gents, a RWD MR2, which was the affordable wild ride of the three, AND there was also the Corolla FX16! A thrilling FWD hatch!
The Supra was too expensive, a premium car for guys with money to burn. For guys just wanting a fun ride – the MR2 was the most fun for the least amount of money. For the ladies, they gravitated towards the FWD Celica and the FWD FX16.
I know. I sold them.
My favorite was the MR2 and the FX16. I ended up with a Mustang 5.0 hatch which was one of my very favorite cars and the same price as the FX16.
Ours is an automatic as well. I do remember the article but somehow lost the magazine. Looks like we are 2 of the 500. Awesome!
Japanese sport cars like Supra were in vogue in1980s. All four main Japanese bands, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda and Mistubishi had mid range sport cars. Only Honda held back a bot with its Prelude. They were inspired to be Porsche and Ferrari. Since 90s with insurgence of BMW and Audi marginalized those Japanese sport car, Those German vehicles performed better, more practical not to mention as fashion statement while relatively affordable. By 2000s, only 300Z is around. Nissan went further bringing its semi racing car GTR. Irony is now only American bands still put out crazy high power machines to lure the mainly middle male buyers including me. I always feel the Mustang GT is an attractive car to have.